"Susann Cokal’s tale of miracles, magic and madness is a double-decker coup: making the [fourteenth century] seem real … and making it matter. [Cokal] translates all she sees so deftly, in language incantatory yet immediate, that the window between then and now becomes dazzlingly clear."

      --San Francisco Chronicle

"Evocative ... vivid."

      --The New York Times Book Review

"An absorbing medieval novel ... original and convincing ... unsettling and bold ... outrageous and wondrous."

      --Sandra Scofield, Chicago Tribune

"A novel of creative wonders."

      --The Orlando Sentinel

"Sprawling, spiritual ... rich with passions both religious and sexual ... and with an awareness of the occasional fine line between the two."

      --Publishers Weekly

"This beautifully crafted story about miracles and belief will not soon be forgotten. The characters are wholly believable, and the medieval world is presented in all its rich brutality and color by an author who knows every detail of the period. One expects to stay up late to finish the latest John Sandford, but a book about medieval wet nurses with dwarfs and monks and exotic, Sapphic witches? Yet readers will, for it is that compelling."

      --Library Journal (starred)

"Rich with the language and surprise of magic."

      --The Santa Fe New Mexican

"A tender, touching, voluptuous book."

      --Carolyn See, The Washington Post